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Dinamic and Methodology of The Peoples´ Summit for Social and Environmental Justice

Against commodification of Life and Nature and for the Defense of Common

Goals of the Peoples´ Summit:

• To present a critical approach to the principles of the Rio+20 official conference: critical of the green economy and the false solutions as well as the insufficient debate on global governance;
• To make visible peoples´ struggles in confronting the current model and its global exploitative forms, particularly in Brazil and Latin America, while at the same time strengthening links of solidarity and the role of social actors in the symbolic political space of the peoples’ struggle in Rio de Janeiro and Brazil;
• To present theoretical and practical proposals and solutions built by the people to deal with the systemic crisis;
• To accumulate force for after Rio+20, to re-establish guidelines for the movements’ struggles in the context of the anti-capitalist struggle that expresses the class, antiracist, anti-patriarchal, anti-homophobic struggles, against the commodification of life and nature, in defence of common goods and against the capitalist attack on people´s territories and against the loss of rights.
• To produce a common agenda based on world struggles and converging proposals, built from social movements and civil society organizations that have been able to project the strength emerging from the current process towards the organization of the Summit, as its own agenda.

Characteristics:

• Peoples’ Space. Autonomous, free from corporations and government influence

Guiding Axis:

Activities and building processes with common views are oriented by the following axis for reflection, debates and summaries (synthesis):

• 1)   Structural causes of the crisis and of social and environmental injustices, false solutions and new forms of capital accumulation on people and in territories
• 2)  True solutions and people´s paradigms
• 3)   Agendas, campaigns and mobilizations that can unify anti-capitalist struggles after Rio +20

Activities:

The schedule and programme are available here, including timetables, dates and venues, with a global map of the Summit in Rio.

Check this link for individual registration.

The peoples’ summit includes a number of events:

• 1.     Camps
• 2.     Future Territories
• 3.     Cultural events
• 4.     Fair Space
• 5.     Shared Spaces for Free Media
• 6.     Self organized events for networking
• 7.     Pre Assembly Plenaries for Convergence
• 8.     Peoples’ Assembly
• 9.     Mobilizations
• 10.  Evaluation

Activities organized during the Summit must contribute to converging towards the Peoples’ Assembly, expressing current mobilizations and having as a goal the construction of unity in diversity.

Activities from 1 to 5 would happen simultaneously between 15 and 22 of June so that the Summit becomes a vibrant space for exchange.

Activities 6 to 8 aim to interconnect the processes of:

• 1)   debating the content and synthesis of reflections following the self-organized networking activities axis of the Summit–
• 2)   building convergences around major themes of unifying agreements – 5 group themes of Convergence for the Plenary sessions, each one will have 3 consecutive sessions to build points of agreement based on contributions from the self-organized activities.
• 3)   And, finally, as an outcome of mobilizations around common views, always following the Summit axis, The Peoples’ Assembly sessions.

The Peoples’ Summit call for mobilizations would focus on June 5, World Environment Day and on June 20, a day of Global Action.

The 23rd of June will be the evaluation day with the participation of organizers and participants in the Peoples’ Summit.

A detailed description of each activity follows:

1. Camps:

These are self organized autonomous spaces organized by movements such as Via Campesina, Women, Indigenous peoples´, Quilombolas and Tradicional Communities, Youth…

2. Future Territories:

These are spaces for exchanges of best practices, demonstrative experiences, exchange of knowledge, popular education that can introduce participants of the Summit and society to a process (road) for building a planet with social and environmental justice. The Territories are located in Aterro do Flamengo and other places in the city of Rio de Janeiro.

Registration for these spaces are now closed.

Check the list of confirmed future territories activities.

3. Cultural Activities:

Musical events, video documentaries, movies, theatre, dance, arts in general, popular arts and other forms of art and culture will perform simultaneously with the goal of strengthening linkages between participants of the Summit as well as society.

Registration for these activities are available soon on the Summit site (till May 20).

4. Fair Spaces:

These include stands and kiosks for displays of food and solidarity economy. These spaces will be for participants to have meals based on principles of solidarity economy and fair trade as well as stands for networks and organizations to exhibit working materials.

Registration for these spaces will be available soon on the Summit site.

5. Shared Space for Free Media:

Shared areas for free media, radio program collectives, community radio and associations and spaces for video editing, as well as interactive portals, will have working space in the Peoples´ Summit Territory.

Registration for these spaces are available on the Summit site.

Press registration is available here on the Summit site (till May 20).

6. Self organized activities for networking:

These should be proposed on the Summit site, www.cupuladospovos.org.br (till  May 5, now closed due to space restrictions).

These are collective events (such as seminars, debates, workshop, panels, roundtables, meetings, guided tours of community projects…), organized by theme or sector and proposed by the largest number of organizations, collectives or movements possible (due to space restrictions).

The goal is to increase reflection and to extend experiences at the thematic or sectoral level, according to the organizations´ interests, always attempting to make visible local struggles or explain social and global struggles.

Registration for these activities is recommended, as is systematizing agreement with the 3 Summit axes and participation in at least one Plenary of Convergence.

Check the complete list of confirmed self organized activities.

7. Pre-Assembly Plenaries of Convergence

There will be large Plenaries of Convergence between themes and sectors in preparation for the Peoples´ Assembly, organized from the contributions of the Self-Organized Events for Networking and historical processes of struggle and organization. There will be 5 large, simultaneous plenaries, each organized into three sessions according to the programming.

Objectives:

• 1)   Deepen the dialogue and convergence between themes and sectors
• 2)   Consolidate common positions between multiple themes and sectors of convergence and create the bases for the Peoples´ Assembly as an expression of unity in diversity, mobilization and political strength able to dispute the political sensibility of the official process
• 3)   Build the position of the Peoples´ Summit in line with the Rio+20 Conference in the broadest context of the systems in crisis starting with the different ‘collector’ themes
• 4)   Strengthen the movement, accumulate forces for the future, rearrange frameworks and agendas of struggle and generate a new cycle of future mobilizations

Please check the Guide document on Convergence plenary and Peoples’ Assembly.

Unifying themes and sub-themes related to each of the 5 Plenaries of Convergence:

Plenary 1 – Rights for Social and Environmental Justice

• Human Rights, Collective and Territorial Rights, Land Rights, City Rights, Water Rights
• Ethnic, Women´s, Environmental, Nature´s/Mother Earth´s Rights, Rights to Life
• Combat Racism, Inequality and Environmental Injustice
• Affirmation of the DHESCA, Environmental Justice, Climate Justice

Plenary 2 – Defence of Common Goods Against Commodification

• Land/Territory, Water, Biodiversity, Air/Climate
• Knowledge, Culture, People´s and Traditional Wisdom, Communication
• Commodification of Nature, Finance and Debt

Plenary 3 –  Food Sovereignty

• Family and Peasant Farming, Farm ecology, Seeds
• Climate Change and Desertification, Country-City Relationship, urban agriculture, Agro-energy, Mono-crops and Agro-toxins

Plenary 4 –Energy and Extractive Industries

• Mining and extractive industries, Megaprojects, Energy for what and for whom, Infra-structure, Militarization
• Fossil Fuels, Bio-fuels, Nuclear Energy, Large Dams
• Energy Sovereignty, renewable energy, decentralization of energy generation and distribution

Plenary  5 – Work: For Another Economy and New Paradigms for Society

• Decent Work, Sexual Division of Labour
• Modes of Production and Consumption, Health, Education, Migration
• Solidarity and Cooperative Economy
• New and urban housing, sanitation and public transportation policies
• Global crisis and struggles of resistance against corporations
• Governance and the financial system’s control of institutions and politics.
• New values and society paradigms, sustainable development, development, negative growth, good living, reciprocity and the caring economy.

Through previous processes and those accumulated from the movements that have articulated these additional themes, brief synthesizing texts will be available as a point of departure for each of the Summit Plenaries. These Plenaries will have to work with the contributions from the outcomes of the self-organized events systematized in the three axes of the Summit.

8. Peoples´ Assembly

There will be 3 Assembly sessions, each one related to the 3 axes of the Peoples´ Summit characterized by mobilization and expression of the convergences and positionings achieved in the Peoples´ Summit process.

The public presentation of positions and convergences will be permeated by symbolic, cultural and animated actions from the different movements respecting and valuing the diversity of cultures of organization and mobilization.

It is hoped that the Assemblies will be political and symbolic moments, uniting, mobilizing and celebrating thousands of people to generate analyses, solutions and common causes of peoples’ struggles.

Please check the Guide document on Convergence plenary and Peoples’ Assembly.

9. Mobilizations

Mobilization is a central axis of the Peoples´ Summit and its impact will be greater if we coordinate our actions.

Days 5 and 20 of June will be Global Days of Action, where we must connect and coordinate the mobilizations occurring on these days throughout the world and make our messages known.

The GT Mobilization is collecting and systematizing information on the organizations’ planning status for these days: what actions, where, when, with whom. A paragraph with this information, also providing name, email and organization address to be added to the organization of Global Mobilizations, must be sent to GT Mobilization: mobiliza@rio2012.org.br

10. Evaluation

The last day of the Peoples´ Summit will be dedicated to internal evaluation among the GA organizations, participants and press communications.